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A single dwarf gourami in a 10 gallon should be just fine. You're doing everything just right for her. It's very obvious how special she is to you and that you're giving good care.
Sorry I misunderstood about the filter changes.

In the meantime, unless there's some unknown source of source of nitrates such as decomposed food or dead plants matter or if you haven't vac'd the bottom for a while. after you do a few 50% W/C you should be fine with one 50% change a week.
Good luck with her.

Fortunately she's stayed at only 4 1/2 inches. I understand stunting but as I said before there is absolutely nothing I can do for a larger tank. She was bought at almost a year old ( I still don't know why the petstore had year old gouramis) and was a runt. The others were normal sized for their age but she was only an inch long. The tiniest little gourami they had. I bought her and about 2 years later got her a male. Which she proceeded to eat. I kid you not I fed them, went to bed and woke up and the male was a skeleton. Gone. She's ferocious and a tough girl, but very very small.

I will continue water changes with the next one being tomorrow.

And age doesn't seem to be the issue. She stills swims vigorously, just not as well as she has to feel around a lot to see where she is and her color is still incredibly vibrant. And she still hates when I do anything in her tank

That siphon is fine. Since you have never cleaned the gravel before it will be very dirty and you need to be careful to not kick up too much gunk while you are cleaning, this could cause an ammonia spike and stress the fish even further. To avoid this, put the siphon straight down into the gravel and let it suck up the gunk until the water runs clear, then lift the siphon straight up to move it to another part of the tank.

When I go fishing I just place a sharp rock in the water and sit there waiting for all the dead fish to float to the top... KingfisherBrutal honesty will be shown on this screen.I think my fish is adjusting well to the four gallon, He's laying on his side attempting to go to sleep on the bottom of the gravel.Tolerance is a great thing to have, so is the ability to shut up.I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.

That siphon is fine. Since you have never cleaned the gravel before it will be very dirty and you need to be careful to not kick up too much gunk while you are cleaning, this could cause an ammonia spike and stress the fish even further. To avoid this, put the siphon straight down into the gravel and let it suck up the gunk until the water runs clear, then lift the siphon straight up to move it to another part of the tank.

+ to mommy 1. that what I use to vac my 30 gal. it will work just fine. And most likely, your nitrates are high because you have never vac'd. once a month is good for maintenance

No, you don't have to remove the fish. I suggest only cleaning part of the gravel today, and more tomorrow. This will ease the stress a bit for the fish.

When I go fishing I just place a sharp rock in the water and sit there waiting for all the dead fish to float to the top... KingfisherBrutal honesty will be shown on this screen.I think my fish is adjusting well to the four gallon, He's laying on his side attempting to go to sleep on the bottom of the gravel.Tolerance is a great thing to have, so is the ability to shut up.I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.

Hey guys just an update on my gourami. I've been preforming regular water changes and she's still eating. Her left eye(the healthy one) has no cloudiness anymore and the right eye has almost no cloudiness and the pupil looks less damaged and scattered. She's been hanging out more by the air stone lately so I changed 50% of the water today. I haven't yet done her gravel cleaning as I have been super busy with school and holidays. I'm going to clean the gravel either tomorrow or Thursday depending on how she's looking.

The real problem I'm having now is algae. I don't know what to do. Its just the common plain green algae you get on the gravel and tank sides. I'm cutting down on light. The tank only gets a good maybe 10 hours of light. Sometimes even less. As her tank isn't on a timer and I'll wake up late on the weekends and turn her light on around noonish

My real question is there any species of snail that I could get to help with this? I'm going to ask my father to take me out this weekend to get an API master test kit is there anything else I should get?? I haven't kept aquatic snails ever. Even when the tank had live plants and I had pest snails I always managed to kill them all off somehow XD I know they can't have copper. I have used some meds on the tank but its been almost two months since then.. Anything I should test for? Any species of snail you guys can recommend for a huge algae problem? Thanks for the help :D